Sunday, 14 April 2013

Testing Mina !

About a month ago I was browsing Ravelry and saw Mina. I became smitten with all that grey smoothness and fit, I thought the neck line was beautiful and I loved those garter sections on the shoulders , hem and cuffs.
I zoomed straight in and noticed the designer is looking for test knitters and my offer to test knit was accepted - Hooray ! 4 weeks later and here is my version..

The pattern is calling for a thin fingering weight that is knitted top down in a looser tension. I tend to knit dense fabrics so chose the hairiest fingering weight yarn in my stash- some grey ( for a change !! haha ) 4 ply alpaca select to conceal the holes between the stitches. The drawback is that those lovely garter sections are less defined .

Those buttons are from John Lewis haberdashery, lovely aren't they ..

I made some modification to suit my frame. Instead of using the cord to gather the material at the waist I made decreases to skim at the waist and then increased a little bit more to allow for the garter hem. By the way a good tip is to go down a needle size or two when knitting those garter hem and cuffs - its looks much neater. I narrowed the sleeves arms and also to keep with the simplicity I did not sew any buttons on the sleeves.

I know I have already said but I want to say it again :-) I am always blown away by your beautiful knits. You are such an inspiration. I'll have to look out for the pattern when it is released. Eddie xx